


Finding What was Lost

by Phi_ScarlaDraconian



Series: Relationship Status: Complicated [5]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, part of a bigger story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-02-09 11:20:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12886785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phi_ScarlaDraconian/pseuds/Phi_ScarlaDraconian
Summary: When Captain Iroh II found himself lost in a strange land with two of his Lieutenants, Daichi and Noaka, he never expected to find what he did.Now, the only question is, will he be able to bring it back home?





	1. Be Our Guest

"What a well-appointed suite of rooms," Lt. Daichi stated as the door closed behind the odd yellow haired woman with the Fire-Nation eyes and the servant with rust colored hair and Earth-Kingdom eyes.

"Yes, so how are we working out the shower arrangements?" Lt. Noaka asked, already browsing through the selection of clothing that had been provided.

"And how do you think they're going to require us to pay for all this?" Capt. Iroh asked while scrolling through the spirit mirror the woman with yellow hair had shown him.  "And did either of you manage to figure out anyone's names during all of this?"

"The woman who showed you that spirit mirror claimed the name Elrik, I think.  The woman who led us to these rooms was…Zhu-Li-Et?  And the healer who assisted you both was…Mus-Tang."

"Weird names," Noaka said around a yawn.  "Yue & La, but I'm tired."

"Understandable, considering we went from that fight with that metal limbed freak and his gang to dealing with a mine collapse.  Did you know your pendant was some sort of spirit prison, Noaka?" Daichi said while examining a second spirit mirror.

"You seem fine," Iroh replied while rubbing his eyes."

"Yes, and all I was doing was digging people out of the ground, you both were healing, which is well known to be more draining than just plain bending," Daichi told him.  "Why don't you and Lt. Noaka get cleaned up, sir, and take advantage of the nice-looking beds while I keep watch."

"Sounds heavenly," Noaka agreed.  "I have been done with this day since those crazy freaks attacked the base," and with that, she walked into one of the rooms to see what the bathing facilities were like.

Capt. Iroh followed her example after confirming with Lt. Daichi that he was fine.  Daichi, being able to bend most of the dirt off, secured the door using one of the odd handle teacups arrayed on the table in the suite's communal area, bent into the handle and latch of the door.  Then he selected a change of clothes like what he had seen other denizens of this strange place wearing.  After that, he headed over to the small kitchen area to browse through the selection of drinks their hosts provided, ranging from; chilled juices, both in bottles and odd metal cans, powders meant to be mixed into water heated by a plug-in kettle, and little individual servings of tea in mesh packets.  He finally decided to be adventurous and try the concoction that Zhu-Li-Et had mixed involving two different packets of dark powder and hot water from the kettle.

He settled at the table, drink placed to the side to cool to a drinkable temperature while he scrolled through the menu on the spirit-mirror he had been shown by the servant who had rolled in the clothing.  He selected a variety of options ranging from the different types of meat as depicted by the little stylized pictures of various animals and levels of spice as denoted by the number of little pepper symbols.  He even picked the one after dinner sweet option that had that little pepper symbol for Capt. Iroh.

After pressing the green symbol to complete the order, he took his first drink of the dark liquid he had let cool, and promptly made a disturbingly embarrassing noise in pleasure.  He reached over and grabbed the little packets the powders had come in, examining the writing to see if he could more easily find items with similar flavors in the menu.  He also prepared separate servings of each of the packets to see which one was what resulted in the delicious taste.

One produced a dark black liquid that was very bitter in taste, even though it had a delightful scent.  The addition of some sweetener made it far more palatable.  The second produced a brown drink, that, though delicious, was almost too sweet.  Which brought him to the conclusion that it was the two tastes together that had made the concoction so delightful.

Some examination of the spirit-mirror brought the discovery that he could narrow the options presented in the menu down dramatically.  By this time, his first meal order had been delivered and he had managed to charm the servant, watched over this time by a guard clad entirely in well-articulated armor, to provide paper in the form of a blank book and some graphite sticks to write with, as well as getting her to write down the names of the two drinks; the bitter drink being Ka-fi and the sweeter one being cha-ko-lat.

With this new knowledge at hand, he was able to filter the menu options for the two flavors, and while sampling the foods already provided, carefully noting down the labels of what he found particularly tasty while setting the spicier options to one side for Capt. Iroh and the saltier options to the other for Lt. Noaka.  He had to guiltily note down the label of the one spicy desert as he found it was far too tasty to resist.

At this point Noaka wandered out of the room she had been sleeping in and Daichi sat her down where he had placed the saltier selections he had thought she would enjoy more.  He then prepared the drink concoction to see what Noaka thought of it.

When she made sounds of pleasure at the first absent-minded sip, Daichi snickered and prepared a cup each of the two mixes so she could decide for herself which she thought was better.

"What _is_ this?" Noaka asked.

"A drink mixture I watched one of our hosts make," Daichi replied.  "It's made from something called cha-ko-lat and ka-fi.  I personally found cha-ko-lat too sweet, but the ka-fi was far too bitter, but mixed together it's wonderful."

"Oh, if we are able to trade with these people, I want that specified in the agreement," Lt. Noaka stated, "it may look like mud, but I'm sure it's been blessed by the spirits."

"I definitely agree," Lt Daichi said just as Capt. Iroh came out of his room, snagged the cup of ka-fi Daichi had prepared for Noaka to taste, absently bent it to near boiling and took a long swig.  Both lieutenants watched as Iroh processed the fact that what he had drank wasn't the tea he was expecting, and whether he liked it.

"What is this?" Capt. Iroh asked, staring into the remnants of his cup.

"They call it ka-fi," Daichi told him, still eagerly awaiting the verdict.

"Ah…" Iroh paused.  Then he jabbed the cup in Lt Li's chest and demanded, "more, and for Agni's sake, make sure it's _hot_."

Noaka snickered as she grabbed the other tea cup Daichi had prepared.  The moan she uttered at her first sip was near indecent.

"Oh, that's just the cha-ko-lat, isn't it?" she asked.  At Daichi's affirmative she continued, "Capt. Iroh can have _all_ the ka-fi.  All of it.  I want the cha-ko-lat."

"Just like Curlylocks and the three Koala-dogs…" Lt. Daichi snickered.  "If you liked the cha-ko-lat drink so much, try this," he said as he passed over a dark brown desert.

At that, both Capt. Iroh and Lt. Noaka started to eat in earnest, and Lt. Daichi congratulated himself on his accurate guesses of the taste of his fellow benders.

"Alright, let's start with what we know," Capt. Iroh started when the three were reduced to picking over the remnants of the meals they had eaten.  "We're in an unknown area, dealing with unknown people we can't easily communicate with.  Let's pool what we know and try to figure out where we can go from here."

"They're likely not used to Benders or Bending," Daichi started.  "And are likely observing us right now."

"What?" Lt. Noaka asked.  "There's no windows and no one is near, how could they be observing us?"

"Easily," Daichi started, grabbing one of the spirit-mirrors.  He held it up so that Iroh and Noaka could see an image of him making odd faces.  "I recorded this earlier while the both of you were sleeping, and after some further examination discovered that I could pull the recording up on any of the three mirrors they gave us."

“What?” Captain Iroh spluttered, “why didn’t you start with that?”

“Besides your reaction being hysterical?” Daichi asked, “seriously though, it might be best if we act normally.  They were also kind enough to provide some learning material for their written language, which seems to be very phonetic.”

“Phonetic?” Noaka asked.

“They have a short array of symbols, each seeming to represent certain sounds, and a few others that provide structure,” Daichi told them.  “Their teaching aide even has a function that will sound out words which will certainly help me understand what they’re saying.”

Which is when the knock came to the suite door.


	2. Watch Over Me

"How are our guests," Security Adjunct Armstrong asked as she walked into the observation center.

"The geo-kinetic, Daichi, took the night watch while his companions slept," one of the technicians answered.  "He jammed the door lock with a mug he manipulated into it, and then spent the night examining the tablet we provided."

"Examined how?" Armstrong prompted, turning her head towards the main screen of the room.

"He put in an order for food, which was curious," Technical Adjunct Elric elaborated, handing Armstrong a printout.  "He picked at least one dish from every meat option, a few different salads, and several desserts."

"There's quite a bit of different seafood here," Armstrong noted, "coastal society, do you think?"

"Certainly plausible," Elric replied.  "He's also never had coffee or chocolate before, but is unlikely to turn down a mocha from this point forward."

"Oh?  And why is that?" Armstrong asked.

"He tried your quick version using instant coffee and hot cocoa mix and seemed to have an orgasm," Elric answered.  "Then spent a good ten minutes carefully examining the packets, then _specifically_ asked for the written names of them from the servant we sent in with the food request and then _searched_ for them on the menu."

"His delight of chocolate and coffee aside, what else have we learned?"

"He's intelligent and methodical, and likely already figured out we're watching them since he's found the camera function on the tablets."

"Push a reading primer to the tablet he's currently using," Armstrong ordered.  "If he's already able to selectively search for specific terms, we may be able to get some meaningful communication done."

The observation team watched as the geo-kinetic started sampling a few bites of each food, gaping when he took bites out of a sea spider leg, crunching through the hard and normally inedible exoskeleton.

"Did he just?"

"Yep..."

"Make a note," Armstrong ordered.  "And let the Mustang sisters know as soon as the other two are awake again.  I'm pretty sure everyone would like out of quarantine."

* * *

"I feel like a creeper, listening in on them like this," Carol Mustang told her elder sister Riza, who was preparing Plague Sample Kits for their guests.

"Does that mean you understand what they are saying?" Riza asked.

"Yes," Carol told her.  "Well enough that I should be able to translate, though there are a few words I don't know."

"That will have to be good enough," Riza answered.  "I haven't noticed any unusual cultures in the contact base, though it has only been a matter of hours since the first contact was recorded."

"So, we go in as soon as the two sleeping wake up?"

"That is the plan," Riza told her.

"Do you think," Carol started hesitantly, "do you think they know who my parents are?"

At that, Riza pauses, now turning her whole attention towards her younger sister.  "It is as likely they have no idea as to the identity of your family.  The fact that you recognize the language and have similar abilities does not guarantee familiarity."

Carol seemed to deflate at this.  "You're right...they probably have no idea who my parents could be..."

"Or, they could know them personally," Riza replied.  "We will not know for certain until we have investigated the possibility."

"And what if my parents decide I'm too broken?" Carol asked.  At this, Riza took Carol's anxiously fretting hands in her own, making sure she had Carol's full attention for what she said next.

"Carol, I _promise_ you.  No matter what happens, you will _always_ have me," Riza told her with as much conviction as she could.

"Thank you," Carol told her sister, already tearing up.

"Now, let's finish getting ready for these indocs," Riza told her younger sister.


End file.
